Gleanings of the Week Ending July 1, 2023

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

How technology helped archaeologists dig deeper – Tools that tell us a lot more than excavation can: chemical and genetic analysis, lidar. This article uses new archaeological data from several cities (New York, Cahokia, Rome, Pompei, Angkor Wat)…pointing out that new analyses reveal that they were often full of immigrants that built the city and there were places those people lived nearby that often were not noticed by excavators! Archaeology is now able to tell us more about how ordinary people lived – not just the elite.

The white roofs cooling women's homes in Indian slums – Maybe white roofs will become a trend in lots of places…reduce the heat island effect that cities must struggle to overcome as the planet gets warmer.

Vienna is the most livable city in the world – It has stability, robust health care and education systems and strong infrastructure, among other factors. There are no cities in the US in the top 10; Honolulu, Hawaii is 25th on the list and the top city located in the US. There are 3 in the top 10 located in Canada: Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. 

That's no pizza: A wall painting found in Pompeii doesn't depict Italy's iconic dish – Tomatoes and mozzarella were not available 2,000 years ago when the fresco was created! Tomatoes came from the Americas a few centuries ago and mozzarella was invented in Naples in the 1700s.

This Ancient Maya City Was Hidden in the Jungle for More Than 1,000 Years – Found during a survey with light detection and ranging (lidar) scans in the Balamku ecological reserve on the Yucatan Peninsula. The site is on high ground surrounded by extensive wetlands. The ruins have been named Ocotun (‘stone column’ in Yucatec Mayan) in honor of the many columns found at the site.

Is fast fashion making us sick? – Fashion can be rife with toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and chromium…and the US has done little to protect consumers from these toxins in clothes. Researchers are correlating declining fertility rate and the rise in autoimmune diagnoses in the US with chemicals found in our clothes.

Winners of the 2023 Audubon Photography Awards Celebrate the Beauty of Birds – Eye candy images of the natural world.

Surgeons must tackle three global health challenges to save lives – Assuming that a new device or approach is always better - not a good assumption but a common one that surgeon make!

The perilous life of the solitary pangolin – Learn about this African animal…their situation in the wild…and how things have changed over the past decade.

Winners of the 2023 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition embrace our world’s biodiversity – Images telling stories.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 8, 2023

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Avi Kwa Ame, Sacred Land in Nevada, to Be Preserved as a National Monument – Good! Another place to see when we make a trip in the west.

Volvo Delivers Its 1st Electric Heavy-Duty Truck in Africa – The truck is being used for collecting waste in Rabat, Morocco. Morocco is also home to the world’s biggest concentrated solar power facility.

A 90-year-old tortoise named Mr. Pickles just became a father of 3. It's a big 'dill' – Radiated tortoise native to Madagascar and critically endangered…at the Houston Zoo.

One of Europe’s last free-flowing rivers declared a National Park – Albania’s Vjosa River. Europe is also removing dams along other river just as we are in the US…but rivers that have been controlled by barriers will never be the way they were before the dam.

Clinics on wheels bring doctors and dentists to health care deserts – It’s a step forward and might work well for preventative or chronic care…but what happens in cases where the need is more urgent…like broken bones, having a baby, the aftermath of a car accident?

Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the world can change within a lifetime – A graphic from ‘Our World in Data’ – worth the look. See the big developments they selected occuring during your lifetime….and when technologies we take for granted came along.

Take a Virtual Tour of the ‘Doomsday’ Seed Vault – Its doors are only opened a few times each year for new seed entries. The seeds come from countries from all over the world and are kept at -18 degrees Celsius. The most recent withdrawal was to re-establish a seedbank that had been destroyed in Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War.

Urban Trees Could Cut Summer Heat Deaths by a Third – Increasing tree cover to 30% could reduce premature deaths from urban heat islands by 40%. Sounds like a good idea of heath…and makes the cities more appealing too. Other actions can help too: green roofs/walls, light colored roofs/walls/landscape pavers, and replacing impervious surfaces with plants and soils.

Fresh produce contaminated with toxic BPA-like chemicals found in food labels – A Canadian study found that the chemicals migrate from labels in packaging materials into the food!

Common sweetener suppresses mouse immune system — in high doses – An artificial sweetener (sucralose) that might become a drug to reduce or replace immunosuppressive drugs that often have a lot of unpleasant side effects (if humans react to it the same as mice).

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 23, 2022

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Watch a Deep-Sea Squid Carry Hundreds of Pearl-Like Eggs – A video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

It’s a trap: managing cowbirds to save songbirds – The strategy of trapping cowbirds (a brood parasite) to help endangered songbirds along the Santa Clara River in Southern California has evolved to reduce harming other species and cost less.

Electric vehicle buyers want rebates, not tax credits – Of course….immediate rebates rather than waiting for months to get a tax credit are much more appealing.

Urban waterways: discovering the hidden beauty of a Jersey River – River restoration across the country…with the Cooper River story in more detail.

Universal influenza B vaccine induces broad, sustained protection – A new kind of vaccine….using nanoparticles. Perhaps this new technology will lead to an effective universal flu vaccine.

The sustainable cities made of mud – A little construction/architectural history….that could be applied more often.

10 Weird Australian Marsupials You’ve Never Heard Of – So many unusual animals…Australia has more than just kangaroos and koalas!

Cancer probably killed world’s first known pregnant Egyptian mummy – 2,000 years ago a young woman died…and was mummified. The Warsaw Mummy Project has determined that she was pregnant – the fetus was ‘pickled’ in the highly acidic and low oxygen environment of the mummified womb – and the woman probably died of nasopharyngeal cancer.

More Electricity from Wind and Solar than Nuclear for 1st time in USA – Hurray! Wind and solar accounted for over 25% of the nation’s electricity in the first 4 months of 2022!

Loss of male sex chromosome leads to earlier death for men – What? Y chromosome loss happens in 40% (estimated) of 70-year-old men. The loss occurs primarily in cells with rapid turnover, such as blood cells. And it might lead to heart muscle scaring…and then heart failure.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 5, 2021

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Infographic: Animals of Different Species Hybridize | The Scientist Magazine® - Hybrids that fill a new environmental niche.

Britain’s Medieval Population Suffered From Cancer - Archaeology Magazine and Cancer rates in medieval Britain were around ten times higher than previously thought, study suggests | University of Cambridge – The same story from two sources. Cancer rates prior to the modern tumor-inducing chemicals from industry and tobacco were higher than previously thought.

Cities Have Distinct Microbial Signatures: Study | The Scientist Magazine® - Samples collected between 2015 and 2017 in transit stations in major cities. More than 4,000 known species…and 14,000 species that had DNA sequences not found in any database!

Top 25 birds of the week: Resident Birds! - Wild Bird Revolution and Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Biodiversity! - Wild Bird Revolution – So many bird pictures! I’m doing a little catching up this week.

The Blooming Mid-Atlantic – Near where I live…places I have been for vacation/birding.

Photography In The National Parks: Seeing The Forest For The Trees – A little lesson in photographing forests and trees and leaves from Rebecca Lawson

Greenland glacial meltwaters rich in mercury -- ScienceDaily – The study looked at nutrients in glacier melt…not expecting to find the high level of mercury. Now there are lots of questions about the potential impact on fishing – Greenland’s primary industry.

The nature reserve with a 500-year plan - BBC Future – Zealandia, an ecosanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand enclosed by a 5.3-mile predatory exclusion fence.

Arizona’s Meteor Crater – Another place I’ve visited… as seen by an instrument on Landsat 8.

Cicadas Fall Prey to a Psychedelic-Producing Fungus That Makes Their Butts Fall Off | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – I think I saw one with a white butt on my first walk around my yard!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 29, 2021

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

How COVID is changing the study of human behavior – Hopefully we are learning something beneficial in the long run from the pandemic….there are also some very depressing aspects of our society that the pandemic has highlighted (that are negative for at least the near term).

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Migration – I am missing the birds I see most during migration times in Maryland this year since I am in Texas.

Kestrel Cam: A Story from Egg to Falcon – Moving from the 25 pictures…to a detailed picture of a small falcon’s life beginning.

Climate change threatens one-third of global food production – We have lots of reasons to make changes…to stop mistreating our planet and let it recover. This is another one.

Saint Petersburg Keeps the Sea at Bay – A big project started in 1979 and operational in 2011…built to withstand a storm surge from the Baltic Sea of 5 meters.

Thirteenth-Century Angkor was home to more people modern Boston – I was surprised….recent studies have shown other ancient population centers were more populous that previously estimated too.

How cities will fossilize – From BBC Future. Thought provoking…using Shanghai Tower as an example to illustrate what could happen.

Flashy plants draw outsize share of scientists’ attention – ‘Aesthetic bias’ when it comes to choices for research (and probably extends beyond plants).

New Monarch butterfly breeding pattern inspires hope – Signs that the monarch butterflies in the western US might be adapting to changing climate. It’s good to see a little positive news about monarchs.

Egyptian Archaeologists Accidently Discovers 250 Ancient, Rock-Cut Tombs – Still new sites to study even in a country that has been intensively studied for many years. This time the tombs are not ‘royal’ – may provide more insight into how ordinary people lived in ancient Egypt.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 17, 2020

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Top 25 birds of the week: October 2020 – Starting out the weekly gleanings with birds.

Linking calorie restriction, body temperature and healthspan -- ScienceDaily – Interesting research. I went off on a tangent thinking about “up to half of what we eat every day is turned into energy simply to maintain our core body temperature.” Many people in the developed world spend the majority of time in temperature-controlled buildings or homes…and that means we probably expend a lot less calories warming or cooling ourselves than we did prior to efficient heating and cooling systems. Just one more way we are changing our environment in a way that will tweak our future evolution.

The super-adaptable chimps that can withstand climate change - BBC Future – I didn’t realize how many different habitats chimpanzees are found in…and that the ones that live in environments with greater seasonal change have more varied behaviors to respond to those changes than chimps that live in an environment that doesn’t change much.

Environmental Education Goes Virtual: Creating Meaningful Learning Opportunities at Home: The National Wildlife Federation Blog – So many good online resources…they’ve been developed over years but are probably getting a lot more use during this pandemic year.

It's Tarantula Season At Bandelier National Monument – I’ve not been to Bandelier during tarantula season! The last time I was there was in March 2005 and that was before I started taking a lot of pictures….this article reminded me that I want to go again. Maybe we’ll plan to go in the fall and be on the look out for the male tarantulas trying to find a mate. Here are a couple of pictures my husband took when we visited in 1980!

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Are we living at the 'hinge of history'? - BBC Future – It’s difficult not to look at current trends and think the future will be a dystopian one with or without seeing this as a ‘hinge.’ The last paragraph was the best of the article: “So, while we do not know if our time will be the most influential or not, we can say with more certainty that we have increasing power to shape the lives and well-being of billions of people living tomorrow – for better and for worse. It will be for future historians to judge how wisely we used that influence.”

Why is America Running out of water? – Shortages are not everywhere…but there are places in the US that are already problematic…and there are a lot of people living in those areas.

Raptor Rescue: When Bird Injuries Warrant Rehab – This article was a good summary of things I’ve heard about before re injured birds.

Unusual climate conditions influenced WWI mortality and subsequent influenza pandemic -- ScienceDaily – Something new about the 1918 flu…torrential rains and unusually cold temperatures kept Mallard ducks from their normal migration…and thus spread the virus more broadly in the battlefields of the Western Front.

What 'net-zero carbon' really means for cities - BBC Future – Using London as an example: no/fewer cars and all transport EV, less concrete…more timber, buildings reused/retrofit, green roofs and walls, renewable energy, reduced waste through recycling and energy production, urban farms. It’s technology that exists now…and already is being applied…ramped up, of course.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 7, 2019

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

BBC - Future - Is city life really bad for you? – Some additional reasons we need to make changes to cities --- if that is where the bulk of humans will live in the future.

A Field Guide to Commonly Misidentified Mammals – Cool Green Science – How many of these animals can you correctly identify?

Blood vessels turning into bone-like particles -- ScienceDaily – The headline caught my interest…bone-like particles in the blood. Then I noticed that the researcher was from the school where I did my undergraduate work back in the 1970s!

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Raptors and Migration – Catching up on these weekly posts from National Geographic. I always enjoy them.

BBC - Future - Can you cool a house without air conditioning? – We’ve probably had our last 90 degree plus day for the season at this point….but over the long term, I expect broadening the technologies we use to cool our homes and buildings is going to be important.

Turquoise-Tinted Tarantula Discovered in Sri Lanka | Smart News | Smithsonian – Iridescent color that must startle the spider’s prey (or a predator) --- and a discussion of collecting by scientists.

See a different endangered animal in every U.S. state – The map is easy to explore. The Puritan Tiger Beetle was the one listed for Maryland….not something I had heard of before.

Infographic: How Muscles Age | The Scientist Magazine® - A little muscle anatomy lesson – for young and old.

The Earth's Vegetation Stopped Expanding 20 Years Ago - News | Planetizen – Another indication that climate change is already having a worldwide impact?

Forest-killing bark beetles also might help ecosystem, experts say - UPI.com – It’s distressing to see a forest of dead trees…but maybe it’s an indicator that monoculture forests and fire suppression are not healthy. And then there is climate change in the mix as well. The beetles now survive the winter temperatures in much of their range.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 14, 2019

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Antibiotics found in some of the world's rivers exceed 'safe' levels, global study finds -- ScienceDaily and Hundreds of world's rivers contain dangerous levels of antibiotics – Same story from different news feeds. Antibiotics we take are not broken down in our bodies and are excreted. Wastewater treatment does not take them out of the water so the rivers are – over time – building up more antibiotics.

Ancient Fingerprints Show Men and Women Both Made Pottery in the American Southwest | Smart News | Smithsonian – The breadth of men’s finger print ridges are 9% wider than those of women…so pots that are made via pinching layers of coiled clay together using the thumb and forefinger (leaving fingerprints) can be analyzed to determine the gender of the person that made them. It turns out at Chaco Canyon that men and women made pottery…unlike the more modern tradition of the skill passing from grandmothers to mothers to younger women.

Route 66 Considered for National Historic Trail in The Park System – On a recent road trip, the Pacific, MO hotel we stayed in (west of St. Louis) was near Route 66. They had a map to continue the journey through Missouri on stretches of the old road. We needed to reach our destination quickly so stayed on I-44…but maybe sometime when we can take our time…we’ll take Route 66 where we can.

CITY SPROUTS: The Budding Movement to Integrate Garden-Based Learning in Public School Education | Children & Nature Network – A laudable goal…but it takes work. With teachers that already have a lot to do….organizing garden-based learning might be a tough addition to their job jar.

Most of the World’s Macadamias May Have Originated from a Single Australian Tree | Smart News | Smithsonian – The majority of macadamias are grown in Hawaii…so the lack of diversity within the trees in Hawaii leaves the crop open to species-level risk. This article talks about the research and search for wild plants in Australia to increase the diversity within the macadamia gene pool.

Seven US Species Invading Other Countries – Cool Green Science – We talk a lot about non-native species invading the US. Here are some that have gone the other way.

A Sea of Sagebrush Disappears, Making Way for Fire-Prone Cheatgrass: NPR – Nearly 75% of the acres burned by wildfires in the west are range lands rather the forest. And what burns is sage and cheatgrass. The problem is that cheatgrass, an invasive grass, grows faster than sage and is taking over land where sage once dominated…and cheatgrass is more flammable. Put that together with climate change and the look of the west is changing.

Megacities Like Paris and London Can Produce Their Own Clouds | Smart News | Smithsonian – The urban heat island phenomenon has been known for a long time. Now studies are looking at cloud cover over cities and it appears they are 10% cloudier than rural areas.

Still snarling after 40,000 years, a giant Pleistocene wolf discovered in Yakutia – Found in Siberia. The discovery was announced as the opening of a Woolly Mammoth exhibition in Tokyo organized by Yakutian and Japanese scientists. The same team also presented a well-preserved cave lion cub.

Six fingers per hand – People with 6 fingers on a hand (a form of polydactyly) can perform movements with one hand where people with 5 fingers would require 2 hands. The brain of polydactyly subjects controls the additional degrees of freedom the additional finger provides without sacrificing any other brain functions.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 20, 2019

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

People who feed birds impact conservation -- ScienceDaily – A study of the impact people have on birds….and the impact feeding birds has on the people!

Bird Species Impacted By Cutthroat Declines At Yellowstone – Colonial water birds have declined as the lake trout have increased (and cutthroat trout had decreased) in Yellowstone Lake. There could be other reasons for the decline of the pelicans, Caspian terns, and cormorants….more study needed.

Medicinal Uses of Mint: IBS, Itching, Nausea, and More | Berkeley Wellness - Human studies of peppermint in enteric-coated capsule form….confirming some of the benefits of peppermint oil. I like the peppermint flavor…so like fresh mint in salads and hot/cold water…the smell and the flavor are wonderful, so the other positive actions mint may have are just ‘icing’ on an already appreciated cake.

In ancient oceans that resembled our own, oxygen loss triggered mass extinction -- ScienceDaily – Oceans are big but they have reached tipping points in the past. This study looks closely at the Silurian Period…the conditions then and what happened with those conditions…making comparisons to the oceans of today.

What An Aging Population Means For The Future Of The Internet – The average age in many countries is trending older…how does that trend ripple into how the internet is used/misused?

Deciphering the walnut genome: Findings could lead to new walnut varieties -- ScienceDaily – Creating hybrids of English walnuts (the most widely sold form of walnuts sold in the US for human consumption) with native Texas Black Walnuts that have better resistance to soil borne pathogens currently impacting the crop.

Why Is Cancer More Common in Men Than in Women? | The Scientist Magazine® - Studying cancer-linked cellular differences between males and females.

Çatalhöyük, Turkey's Stone Age settlement that took the first steps toward city life – Only 4% of the site has been excavated….still a lot to learn.

To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars – Letting nature into the core of the city.

A Colonial-Era Cemetery Resurfaces in Philadelphia - The New York Times – Teasing out the history from remains of a cemetery that was supposed to have be moved years ago…but maybe wasn’t entirely.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 12, 2019

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

I have a growing list of gleanings from sites that are not operational because of the partial government shutdown; they’ll come out in the list for the Saturday after the sites are operational again.

Climate, life and the movement of continents: New connections -- ScienceDaily – Sediment, which often includes pieces of dead organisms, may create a lubricating effect between plates, accelerating subduction and increasing plate velocity!

BBC - Future - Six reasons your memory is stranger than you think – Timelines are hard (many times inaccurate) from memory…I’m glad I keep a running list of important family travel and events.

Regenerative Cities: An Urban Concept Whose Time Has Come! | CleanTechnica – Re-thinking what cities of the future could be.

Scientists call for eight steps to increase soil carbon for climate action and food security: International coordination and financing essential -- ScienceDaily – Big benefits…but hard to come by the collective push to obtain them.

Earthquake Damage Detected in Machu Picchu - Archaeology Magazine – Evidence of an AD 1450 earthquake that damaged Machu Picchu is seen in cracks and stone damage of the buildings. The Inca’s modified their construction techniques after the event too.

Shrinking of Utah National Monument May Threaten Bee Biodiversity | Smart News | Smithsonian – Grand Staircase-Escalante is home to 660 bee species, 84 of which live outside of protected land under changes. At a time when we know pollinators are under stress…one more reason why our Federal lands are needed as refuges from human activities that damage the environment.

Scientists Don't Stay for Long in Their Jobs Anymore: Study | The Scientist Magazine® - About half of scientists who enter a scientific discipline drop out after 5 years; in the 1960s, it was 35 years. We are probably training more people in science fields but many don’t stay in academia. This study used publishing records to determine if a person stayed ‘in the discipline.’ I’d prefer to see numbers of people that had careers in a STEM related field rather than just the one they trained in and find another metric than published papers to make the determination. There are a lot more jobs today where people use their science training that do not use ‘publication’ as a measure of success.

BBC - Future - Can we cheat ageing? – Some areas of active research to help us stay healthy longer (may or may not help us live longer).

Corn Domestication May Have Taken Thousands of Years - Archaeology Magazine – It all started 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico. The process continued in Mexico and the southwestern Amazon for several thousand years. It was a slow process.

Ring in the New Year With Dazzling Total Lunar Eclipse of a Supermoon | Smart News | Smithsonian – Hope we have good weather on January 20-21….since it should be visible from our house!